7-40 Challenge | Round 4, Day 12
There’s a story about an arts professor who split his pottery class into two groups. The first group only had to produce one piece for the entire year. One shot at perfection. The second group was graded on volume — they had to produce as many pieces as possible, measured by weight at the end of the semester.
At the end of the year, the volume group didn’t just produce more pottery. They produced better pottery. Piece after piece, the craft improved. Meanwhile, the single-piece group spent the year theorizing about what good pottery looked like and never developed the skill to make it.
I think about that story a lot.
I’m 500 posts into BiblePictures365 on Instagram and TikTok. The compositions are stronger now — better framing, better detail, images that actually stop a scroll. I’ve written a blog post every day this year, and the change there is different — the arguments are tighter, the thinking is more organized, and I waste fewer words getting to the point. Two different crafts, both sharpened the same way. Not by studying theory. By shipping something every day and letting the reps do the teaching.
Volume made the quality better. Not worse.
There’s a difference between volume and noise. You can only turn it up as loud as it is good. Go louder than the quality supports, and it’s just blaring — it hurts more than it helps.
But the answer to that isn’t to go quiet. It’s to keep producing at the level you’re proud of and let the reps tighten the craft.
I have no way of knowing everyone who’s seen my work this year. I just know that none of it would have reached anyone if I hadn’t shipped it.
Five five-star reviews on Amazon — most from people I hadn’t spoken to in years — exist because I published the book. 8,000 Instagram followers exist because I posted every day. Over 400,000 views on one video exist because I was already 200 posts deep when it hit.
If I had not shipped these things, they would not have had a chance to impact people.
David Willis 